The New York judge presiding over former U.S. President Donald Trump's trial for allegedly falsifying business records on Tuesday held the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee in criminal contempt for repeatedly violating a gag order, fined him $9,000, and threatened to jail him if he does it again.
Judge Juan Merchan ordered Trump to pay $1,000 for each violation of the gag order and directed him to remove eight offending social media posts.
"Defendant violated the order by making social media posts about known witnesses pertaining to their participation in this criminal proceeding and by making public statements about jurors in this criminal proceeding," Merchan wrote in his 8-page decision.
Trump is "hereby warned that the court will not tolerate continued willfull violations of its lawful orders and that if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances, it will impose an incarceratory punishment," the judge added.
Trump faces 34 felony charges for falsifying records related to alleged hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 election cycle.
Overall, Trump is charged with 88 federal and state felonies related to this case and three others that stem from interfering with and trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and mishandling classified documents.
Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
